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Re: What type of bee hive is best for the home bee keeper

Mgolden, let me explain. With 9 frames in the brood chamber they draw it out more than ten but only to a certain extant as the brood cannot be reared in a cell that is too long. Therefore their is more space within the brood chamber. This reduces congestion and adds ventilation. Within the honey supers, you are correct, they draw out the cells as close as they would be in ten which makes them easier to uncap. Also, longer cells make longer bees. Why do you think queen breeders pick out the biggest queen cells. I dont make this stuff up.

Re: What type of bee hive is best for the home bee keeper

Longer bees????????????

9 frames doesn't make a lot of sense in brood supers when trying to get the population built up.

If there is only a bee space between longer cells in a honey super, the air flow in the hive is than reduced to less area and technically less ventilation. And is irrelevant as bee modulate the air flow.

If you always do what you always did, you'll always get what you always got!

Re: What type of bee hive is best for the home bee keeper

Yeah, longer bees. You've never seen those short stubby ones walkin around? I think everyone knows 10 frames holds more brood than nine, which is why everyone uses two brood chambers. Never seen a queen stop at 1 deep, never seen one run out of room with 2.

Re: What type of bee hive is best for the home bee keeper

Ah ha! I found it! Well sort of. In the book abc and xyz of bee culture 34th edition on page 134-135, it states "Ursmar Baudoux,a belgian, in 1893 concieved the idea that larger cells could develop correspondingly larger bees with a longer tongue reach... By 1896 he apparently proved his theory so that a comb foundation manufacturer built a mill with enlarged cell bases. The results of the tests seemed to show not only larger bees, but a longer tongue reach and larger wings"

So a larger cell diameter does indeed make larger bees. The jury is still out wether longer cells will, but it makes sense to me and is the same principle.

Re: What type of bee hive is best for the home bee keeper

In case you haven't realized it, you are being offered two conflicting schools of thought on frame spacing.

1. Put 9 frames in a 10 frame box to improve ventilation and allow the bees to draw the cells out more, which may produce larger/longer bees.

2. Put 11 narrow frames in a 10 frame box (or 9 frames in an 8 frame box), with either small-cell foundation or no foundation. This will produce smaller bees, which some beekeepers believe provides an advantage against mites.

I recommend sticking with standard frame spacing (10 frames in a 10-frame box or 8 in an 8-frame) to start with, unless you can find a good mentor who uses an alternative setup.

For whatever reason, beekeeping is less standardized than most modern agriculture, and it is quite common to see experienced, successful beekeepers practicing and promoting contradictory methods. Some of this has to do with regional differences, so I would encourage you to pay most attention to advice from nearby beekeepers, and to visit 3-5 bee yards in your area to see how the locals do things.

The treatment-free crowd is especially full of ideological differences, which arise as follows:
Beekeeper A is determined to be treatment-free, and experiments with a wide range of practices, hive designs, etc. Eventually she succeeds in reliably keeping bees on small-cell foundation in top bar hives, and quite logically concludes that this has something to do with survival. So she promotes this as a way to be treatment-free. Beekeeper B is also determined to be treatment free, but finds that his best survival occurs in triple-deep Langstroth hives with moisture quilts, so he promotes these changes as the best solutions. Both may be "correct", in a sense, in that both have developed bees that do well in a particular hive configuration and might not do as well in an alternative design.

I would encourage you not to commit to treatment-free in your first year or two. Maybe avoid chemicals that leave residues in wax, but be open to using the "standard" nosema (fumagilin) and mite (thymol, formic acid) treatments. I say this as a beekeeper who lost both of his hives in the first year. Going treatment-free means accepting higher losses for a few years, and if you have two hives "higher losses" may well mean you have no bees in spring. It's kind of like learning to swim. First you learn to float, then paddle, then eventually the butterfly. But if you tried to learn the butterfly first, you would struggle and probably sink, and you might give up on swimming as too hard.

To add to my earlier comments, Langstroth hives allow you to harvest honey without destroying the comb, but only if you have access to a honey extractor. If you aren't planning to buy an extractor, you will need to crush and strain, in which case the Langstroth advantage is less apparent.

Re: What type of bee hive is best for the home bee keeper

So many of you are writing about 9 frames in a ten frame box and I just wanted to point out that my understanding is that this practice, where it may be something folks do in their brood chambers, the practice as I was taught was developed for use primarily in honey supers, not brood supers, so honey could be extracted from deeper combs. The idea being that in fact one can get more honey from 9 deep celled combs than one can get from ten combs not as deep celled.

I do quite often run 9 frames in my ten frame deeps, but they are not spaced but tight together. Logically deep celled combs would produce longer bees, but I don't know that this is actually so. Nor do I believe that queen rearers really select long bodied queens so they can lay in deep celled combs. An interesting idea, but I don't know if it is true or not.

Re: What type of bee hive is best for the home bee keeper

Luterra - Since I don't have a mentor, nor do I know anyone in the bee keeping world aside from those folks who posted on this forum... Maybe I need to stick with the basics to get going, and keep reading to see if I am slick enough to spearhead a new or newer technique. I think that will be a bit before I am that confident haha Perhaps I should first get used to the bees

That is the tough part about starting out. You don't know what you don't know (a bit Yogi like, but you get my point). The key for me is putting bees in a hive and learning from them, and not taking too much from them. Of course with a simple question comes thousands of complex ways to answer it

All this and I still haven't even figured out where I will be getting bees

Re: What type of bee hive is best for the home bee keeper

I guess its a bit late to enter this thread but if I were you I would start with 10 to 8 frame langstroth hives with frames and foundation. This in my experience is the easiest for beginners who are just trying to even get familar with beekeeping. I would not get involved with foundationless, small cell, top bar or even GASP treatement free for the first year or two at least. Find a good mentor and have them help you along, but remember start with the standard methods and learn rules before you try to break them with some of the alternative techniques mentioned in this thread--I know some here would disagree with me, but I think having someone have their bees live for a few seasons rather than combating all issues at once and having them perish is better for a new bee.

Also with 2 acres you can have plenty of hives--we have 3/4 of an acre here with 7 hives and no problems as long as you manage them properly

Re: What type of bee hive is best for the home bee keeper

Originally Posted by xcugat

I guess its a bit late to enter this thread but if I were you I would start with 10 to 8 frame langstroth hives with frames and foundation. This in my experience is the easiest for beginners who are just trying to even get familar with beekeeping.
...~...
Also with 2 acres you can have plenty of hives--we have 3/4 of an acre here with 7 hives and no problems as long as you manage them properly

I think this is good for me. My lot is on 1/3 acre, but I back up to a large area, 3-400' before a railroad track (buried pipelines) and will not go over 5 hives as I have to register as an apiary with the state and I am sure my HOA would go nuts (business & all). Besides I think 5 is a good limit for my lot and what I want to do.

Re: What type of bee hive is best for the home bee keeper

If you are not planning to stay in bees, go 10 frame so you can sell easier. If you plan on buying used equipment go 10 frame.

I guess I am against the grain. While everyone else is going 8 fame, I have started changing over to 13 frame, (a square hive., not rectangular.) I make all my own, don't plan on selling, and I don't care what happens to it when I am gone, I will be 70 years old in May, but I do not have any trouble manipulating them. Only one deep for brood, and two shallows are more than three 8 frame shallows. Less equipment, less height.

Re: What type of bee hive is best for the home bee keeper

One thing that may have escaped you guys using 9 frames in a 10-frame box is that the 11 narrowed, 1 1/4" wide frames go in the brood box with 4.9mm cell size foundation to get more bees and less mites, and the 9 frames go in the honey supers in order to draw the same amount of honey in fewer frames. If the honey supers are made foundationless, the bees will draw out what looks like drone comb, but is actually sized for storing honey, larger than worker cells, but almost as big as drone cells. Not too bad a setup, really. I would happily buy such a rig.

Re: What type of bee hive is best for the home bee keeper

Originally Posted by Cleo C. Hogan Jr

If you are not planning to stay in bees, go 10 frame so you can sell easier. If you plan on buying used equipment go 10 frame.

I guess I am against the grain. While everyone else is going 8 fame, I have started changing over to 13 frame, (a square hive., not rectangular.) I make all my own, don't plan on selling, and I don't care what happens to it when I am gone, I will be 70 years old in May, but I do not have any trouble manipulating them. Only one deep for brood, and two shallows are more than three 8 frame shallows. Less equipment, less height.

cchoganjr

Hello Cleo - I was the guy who emailed you recently about the ash tree with bees in it - thanks for the info and help!

Don't get me wrong, I want to stay in bees, not looking to resell before I start

However it looks like apple trees now days. Filled with pesticides to get pretty fruit due to all the pest dammage. Well at least with my apple trees the ugly apples get pressed and make great cider. With the bees they die and you are left with nothing except a feeling of failure.

I don't take this hobby lightly, so I want to set myself up with good tools, good knowledge in the hopes that I can make a treatment free situation work. It is intimidating reading all the loses of hives people have as a new guy.

Re: What type of bee hive is best for the home bee keeper

Standard Langstroth equipment is probably the best for starting out. TBHs can get to be a real pain unless you hounddog them all the time, they weren't developed for best beekeeping practice, but instead to provide the least costly means of maintaining hives. Langs have great advantages, particularly honey production and ease of management.

If you have the equipment (table saw with dado blade) and skill, you can make your own boxes easily, but you will really only save the cost of shipping pre-cut boxes. For me that's a large sum, almost doubles the cost, but if you can pick them up you won't save much. Lots of fun though.

Boxes are permanent for the most part. lasting decades with minimal care, so they should not be a huge expense. Frames are cheap, but again if you have a garage full of odds and ends wood like I do, and shop at the box stores in the scrap pile, they aren't all that hard to make and it's fun.

I make my own bottom boards (screened) and top covers, and those are MUCH cheaper than purchased. 3/8" plywood, some 1 x 4 and a few hours and I can knock out several. I like them much better than plastic, I cover them with aluminum flashing.

You will also need good paint or other permanent outdoor wood treatment to keep the boxes from rotting at the joints. Any color will do, you can probably pick up a gallon of off-tint at the box store for $5. Likely only loud pink (which seems to be the only color I ever find there) but the bees won't care.

You probably won't need a bee suit -- a veil and long sleeves and pants works for me. Do watch bending over and squeezing bees between your belly and belt, they will sting you even if they don't want to! Ditto for letting them crawl up a pant leg! A nice smoker will last you a lifetime, in fact a cheapo will last a lifetime if it's all metal but the bellows.

Re: What type of bee hive is best for the home bee keeper

Re: What type of bee hive is best for the home bee keeper

I have been following this thread, and I too am just starting out and will get my first bees next spring. I have built a top bar hive, and have been thinking about a lang type hive as well to compare. This thread has gotten me very interested in 8 frame mediums. I have been looking at western bee supply ( which seems to be the most reasonable on wooden ware that i've found) I see hive bodies in 8 or 10 but they don't say medium or deep then they have supers in 3 different sizes.I would like to go foundationless, what exactly would I need to order?

Re: What type of bee hive is best for the home bee keeper

Originally Posted by Harley Craig

I would like to go foundationless, what exactly would I need to order?

The brood/super boxes come in three sizes, deep, medium and shallow. Th exact depth I don't remember, but you can google the depth of the boxes. The medium sized box will be the one you want if you want to run mediums. To be safe, just call and tell them you want to run mediums, and they will be sure to get you the right sized box.

Since you want to go foundationless, pretty much any medium frame will do. You might want to get some wire, or fishing line, to add some strength. I would suggest you look at tthe Mann Lake PF120 frames. They provide small cell size, and might be really nice for a beginner to get started on.

Re: What type of bee hive is best for the home bee keeper

Hive bodies are deeps in beekeeper talk most of the time, so I'm sure that Western means deeps. You want medium supers which you will use as hive bodies instead of deeps.

I personally prefer wedge style frames with divided bottom bars since it's easy to flip the wedge sideways and make a nice comb guide and if you do use wired foundation (which I also recommend) it stays put. You can use whatever suits you, there are several styles, but make sure you get the correct foundation for the frames you are using, else it won't fit.

Wire all frames -- the bees will build the comb around the wires just fine. Some people like to use nylon fishing line instead, and that's OK too, but I DO recommend wires, especially with wired foundation. Otherwise, it ALWAYS sags since the vertical wires are bent (they come on a roll and keep some curve when the foundation is rolled). Flat comb is much nicer, believe me. It is much less likely that you will drop comb out of the frame with wire, too, and extracting is safer, although I have to say we have not blown out a comb in the seven years we've been involved this time around, and I don't remember my grandpa saying anything about it either even when I cranked the extractor too fast.

I don't recommend putting bees in a hive with only foundationless frames, it can take quite a while to persuade them to put the comb where you want it instead of where they want it -- in cold damp weather they are as likely to build it across the frames as along them, wanting "cold way" comb to cut down on airflow.

I would recommend starting with at least 4 frames of foundation, then putting an empty frame between fully drawn and capped comb as the hive expands. It's more work, but you will get better comb. Then, when you add another box, pull up two drawn frames with an empty between, put the empties where the drawn ones were, etc and you will be fine.

Otherwise you get a mess. I've got some problems in one hive I will have to fix next spring where the bees only partially drew a foundationless frame out, and extended the comb at the bottom from the sides bridging it together. I didn't want to go cutting comb up when I was trying to get them up to weight for winter, so I'll fix it in the spring when they will be drawing comb like crazy. I left them empty since I ran out of foundation, should have moved them between capped comb but I got busy.

You should be prepared to get a significant amount of drone comb on the first few foundationless frames. Move this to a location a couple frames in, at the edge of the brood nest, when you can. That way the bees can use it to make drones when they want them and not put them between boxes and in the honey supers, which is what they do otherwise.

Have fun, beekeeping is great, especially when you get to extract you first full super of honey!